At a Tuesday afternoon press conference, Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman and Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell gave an update on the murders of legendary Hollywood director Rob Reiner and his wife, photographer Michele Singer Reiner.
Hochman announced that he would be filing charges against Nick Reiner on two counts of first degree murder with a special circumstance of multiple murders. Reiner also faces a special allegation that he "personally used" a dangerous and deadly weapon – a knife – in the commission of those murders.
The charges, according to Hochman, carry a maximum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole or the death penalty. No decision on the death penalty has been made at this point.
Once the charges are filed, which is expected to happen sometime Tuesday afternoon, Nick Reiner will then be brought to court for arraignment and will enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. Reiner is currently going through medical clearance, something all arrestees held by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office must do before going to court.
As RedState previously reported, Nick Reiner, 32, was arrested late Sunday or early Monday and held on suspicion of murder. The Reiners' daughter, Romy, reportedly discovered the bodies in the master bedroom on Sunday afternoon, and rescue services were dispatched to the Brentwood residence, only to discover that it was too late. Romy apparently told police to question her brother, Nick, describing him to law enforcement as being "dangerous."
The younger Reiner was taken into custody without incident in the Exposition Park area of L.A. He is being held without bail at Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles.
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A rough timeline is emerging of how things might have gone down. Several media outlets have reported that Nick accompanied his parents to a Saturday evening Christmas party at the home of comedian Conan O'Brien, and, while there, tried and failed to get the attention of comic Bill Hader. This allegedly caused Nick to get agitated and storm off, and, at some point, get into an altercation with his father.
It appears the fighting continued once the Reiners returned to their Brentwood home, with Nick Reiner later checking into The Pierside Santa Monica hotel at around 4:00 a.m. Sunday morning, almost a full 12 hours before the bodies were discovered. A report indicates that the hotel room was "full of blood," which, if true, means the murders took place late Saturday or early Sunday.
Cinematographer Barry Markowitz stayed with the Reiner family in November and remembered it was "business as usual," and the family went about their business with no big blowups or disruptions. From Markowitz's comments, it appears that all three of Rob and Susan's children lived at the home.
“[We would] scream at the TV, we watched a movie and a basketball game. Played with the dogs. Family time. One big love fest.”
Markowitz noted that Nick — who has publicly struggled with drug addiction issues since he was a teenager — seemed to be “on the upswing.”
“He looked great. He was sitting and talking with the family,” Markowitz shared. “They eat dinner together, old school, and a lot of love, always a lot of love.”
Nick Reiner has a long history of drug abuse and homelessness, something his parents had apparently tried to tackle head-on.
"The program works for some people, but it can’t work for everybody," Rob Reiner told the Los Angeles Times in 2015. "When Nick would tell us that it wasn’t working for him, we wouldn’t listen. We were desperate and because the people had diplomas on their wall, we listened to them when we should have been listening to our son."
Nick Reiner has hired attorney Alan Jackson as his defense counsel. Jackson most recently represented Karen Read, the Massachusetts woman who was charged in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe.
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